by Mike Lopresti, USA TODAY Sports

by Mike Lopresti, USA TODAY Sports

ATLANTA -- The text to Trey Burke came direct from Michigan's Fab Five glory days. Jalen Rose, to be precise.

It reminded Burke that he had gone to Ann Arbor with Monday night in mind, and now it was time. "Get it done," it read. And at the end, "Hail." As in, to the victors. You've heard the fight song. Only this time, if the Wolverines are victors, they get to cut down the nets.

"One of our words," Burke was saying Sunday. "That means so much to the whole team."

It is in Burke's hands now. His and his teammates. They know what Monday night means against Louisville, and the chance to carve their own initials into the rather peculiar history of Michigan basketball.

It will hardly be easy. Burke comes off a seven-point shooting game where the basket seemed to shrink to the width of a saucer, though he did have the four assists against Syracuse, the three steals, the one turnover in 38 minutes. "What you have to understand," coach John Beilein said, "it's more than just that box score."

And now the Louisville championship-seeking pressure is aimed at Burke. All 6-foot of him. "It will come down to a battle of will," he said.

It could also be history. Michigan does not own a garden variety past. This is the program whose most glamorous era â?? the Fab Five -- has been officially eradicated because of money that Chris Webber took (not the sixth timeout he called). The national runner-up banners are now are stored in the school library.

This is the program whose only national championship was won with an interim coach. Steve Fisher replaced Bill Frieder just before the 1989 tournament because athletic director Bo Schembechler was irate that Frieder had accepted a job at Arizona State. His famous retort was that a Michigan team would be coached "by a Michigan man."

Frieder had to watch his players win the national championship from a hotel suite. He is here this weekend calling the game for radio, overjoyed to see the Wolverines finally back.

"I left because a football coach was AD, and Steve Fisher was fired by a (former) football player," Frieder said Sunday. "Back then, they had the mentality that both basketball and football couldn't be good. Now, they've got that mentality they can both be good.

"I was honest about what was going to happen and I was penalized for being honest. But I was never bitter. I always supported Michigan. I went to Michigan. Despite what you heard and read, I was a Michigan man with two degrees."

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This is a program whose top player, Burke, was decidedly below the blue chip line on recruiting lists in high school, but ended up national player of the year.

Whose coach has spent 35 years on a road tour through nearly every level of college basketball. When Rick Pitino went to his first Final Four at Providence, Beilein was coaching Le Moyne College.

He was still Le Moyne's coach in 1989, and in the stands in Seattle when Michigan played in the Final Four. All he remembers is telling his wife how much he liked "Hail to the Victors." Now he hears it a lot.

"I hope I'm holding some type of flag right now for all those Division II, Division III, NAIA, junior college coaches," he said, "knowing that they could be here too right now if they had the same breaks I had."

The current Wolverines all know the Michigan past. Sort of. Burke was asked if he could name the starters from the national champions, and he came up with two; Glen Rice and Rumeal Robinson. Nobody else in the current lineup could do better than that.

But Burke understands what a championship would signify to Michigan, and why the echoes of the Fab Five are so loud at the moment. They, too, got this far. Only, they lost. Twice.

These Wolverines can take one very, very big step higher.

"That's a strong and bold statement," he said. "So I don't think we should really look at that way, because that's a lot of pressure."

Still, he added, "that's has been our goal since day 1." And he mentioned how, when he said last year he was returning to Ann Arbor as a sophomore to chase a championship, "a lot of people looked at me like I was crazy."